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Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice, although sometimes is annoys me. I’ve collected a list of some features that are not immediately obvious to a casual reader.

Unsubscribe From An Entire Folder

When you go to the “Settings” page of Google Reader and select “Tags” you can choose to delete a tag, but that’s exactly what it does - delete the tag. The feeds that were in the folder just become uncategorised.

If you want to unsubscibe from all the feeds in a folder, you need the “Subscriptions” tab. Filter by the folder name, select all the results and then click the unsubscribe button. Much quicker than going through them one-by-one.

Thanks to Maki for this tip via Twitter.

Aggregate Feeds By Folder

You can create a shared feed out of all your items, your starred items or just a single folder at a time. You do need to go to the settings page and make your feeds public before they can be accessed by other tools (like Yahoo Pipes or even Google Spreadsheets) but that might not be an issue for you.

Google Reader’s feed aggregation is not a sophisticated as, say xFruits, but it’s really quick and easy.

Is There Really A Use For OPML?

OPML is an XML specification for sharing feeds. It has yet to take off in a big way, but it’s used by other feed readers and a host of sites that want to help you find relevant content or even build your own website around your feed subscriptions.

You can get an OPML file containing all your subscribed feeds by using the “Import/Export” tab on the settings menu.

OPML support is in its infancy and Ryan Tate has some great suggestions for the Google Reader team.

Have you got any other tips for Google Reader? Add a comment below.